“Uhhhg...” Maladrain rubbed his head, sitting at the table alongside Gruan, me, and Reco. “So, uhh...did you get recruited or...” he asked, clearly suffering from a migraine.

I nodded.

“Oh, yeah, that’s cool I guess...ow...so, about the Moorland’s request. I’d like to send Reco, Saya and the Junior Squad out to handle it.”

“If the instructor agrees,” Gruan responded.

“Ok, cool...so I’m going to go to my dorm...is that fine?”

“Feel free to.”

“And Saya, I’m going to leave you with them, for now. If you need me, I’ll be stopping by the training grounds to get the go-ahead from the instructor. Then, uhh, I need to rest in my dorm. It’s dorm 12.” Maladrain stood up from the marble table and walked out.

“Soooo, congratulations, Saya!” Reco suddenly brought me under her arm and knuckled my head, despite my attempts to shake her off.

When she was finished with her assault on my head, Gruan turned towards me. “Does your [drake] need any special treatment? From the sound of it, he’s not ordinary, so if you need anything for him, just say...” He then whispered, “I’ll put it on your tab.”

{I visited a [drake] tamer about him. I will say if I need anything.} I wrote.

“Oh, well that’s good. I presume you intend on taking him on your adventures?”

I nodded.

“Understood. Now...” Gruan cleared his throat. “Reco?”

“Yeeees, Gruan?”

“Have fun with the kids. Most of them need someone to look up to.”

“Tch! ‘Fun’ is my middle name!”

“Really now?!”

Reco chuckled. “No, I don’t even have one.”

“Oh. Well anyway, I’m sure you all know what’s up. I’ll talk with the instructor after Maladrain, but in the meantime, you and Saya can share your room.”

“No prob, Gruan.”

“Sure, sure. Stay safe out there.”

We passed by Maladrain as he was talking to some very good-looking man in shining armor, with a strange spear on his back. He seemed a little apologetic, but his peer seemed unoffended by whatever Maladrain had said.

“Don’t worry about a thing, Maladrain. I’m sure she’s a wonderful young girl. Oh, is that her?”

They looked over to me as Reco and I passed, and I waved. “Well, I’d waste my time apologizing to you more, but I uhh...”

“You got defenestrated, I get it. You can rest up, and I’m sure you’ll be fine tomorrow.”

“Heh, I hope I will be,” Maladrain responded, before shambling ahead.

The training ground was barebones, all things considered. It was a 30 meters long dusty field with a few armored dummies of humanoids and monsters, including [bear], [hound] and [wyrm] body types. They were shoved beside the fence for the time being, with the four trainees just practicing their swings and methods with various weapons.

One of them put his training on hold to walk up to me. His hair was blindingly bright blonde, just like the instructor, and held himself regally. They were probably related. “Hello...Saya, was it?” He placed a fist on his chest and nodded his head. “I am Ritta Tron Gallant.”

I quickly jotted down my introduction, {I’m Saya(I’m [mute]). Nice to meet you, Ritta.}

“Oh? I wasn’t expecting to see a Silent Angel join the adventurer’s guild. Herbert, did you approve of her already?”

The instructor shrugged in a somehow refined manner. “Not quite, but we will do the formal introductions tomorrow. In the meantime, Saya, you can stow away if you want. The squad seems to be letting themselves get distracted by you and your [drake].” He looked to the rest of them questioningly, who had stopped their practice to observe, and clicked his tongue. “Come, come, back to work you all.”

Both Ritta and the instructor may have had the [noble presence] that Cobaltio used to look dignified.

As I and Reco walked to the dorms, a large building behind the training grounds with a lot of doors, I saw Maladrain walking to the one to the top-left of the two-story-tall building.

“Yeah,” Reco began as we approached it, “It seems like you’ll be sticking to my room for now.” Reco stretched in a Y formation as we walked to the back of the building, yawning. “Want to visit the armory once we drop our stuff off?”

I shook my head.

Reco sighed. “Ok, I admit it, I don’t want to either. I’m bushed!”

Reco’s dorm wasn’t very big, but it wasn’t small either. It had a window, a bed, a desk, and a whole bunch of banners, memorabilia, trophies, and other sports stuff. Her closet was filled with a couple of interesting weapons and some vintage camping gear, a lot of which didn’t look useful.

When I looked in it, Reco, who had been splayed on the bed, exhausted, sat up before I knew, pulling me away. “Don’t touch those weapons, that stuff is dangerous.” I was about to grow indignant in response but realized Reco wasn’t the type to protect me from dumb stuff, and let her continue. “Those three weapons are my archaic tools. They’re weapons and tools forged from before the Age of Gods. One of them is so sharp that it cuts you if you so much as tap its blade.”

She squinted at the shortsword, a curved sword with a small blade protruding from halfway down its blade, meant for catching other blades. Beside it was a pickaxe and a horribly rusted knife.

“Uhh, I’m not sure which one, though...oh -the dagger.” I sent her a bewildered expression. ”A-anyway,” she quickly said, embarrassed. “it’s best if you don’t touch them. They’re, like, mine. So...” She closed the closet. “Don’t sneak up on me with the shortsword and cut my neck in the night, kay?”

{Darn, predicted entirely.} After a few more seconds, I asked: {Why don’t you use them?}

She sat back on her bed. “A few reasons. The dagger would always cut through any container it was in, so actually carrying it around would be pretty dangerous. Though, the main problem is that their magic is unstable.” She shrugged. “I guess that happens when something is over 400 years old.”

{What does that do, then?}

“Unstable magic? Uhh...I dunno. I’ve heard that some poor dude got killed by the shrapnel of his archtool because it exploded during his smithing. I only keep those around for emergencies, because of it.”

The ‘archaic tools’, or ‘archtools’, as Reco just referred to them seemed to be out of the scope of Reco’s knowledge, so I reminded myself to ask a more educated person about it later.

I paused, realizing something. I really liked to learn.

Quickly moving on from that revelation, I ended up setting a table up to play Tutu on, and Reco played with me for an hour or two before we decided to call it a short day and go to sleep

“So...only one of us can leave,” Zatchel said, his head downcast as we looked into our reflectionless pond.

The arrival of that boy, ‘Keolon’ was our only hope, yet I felt incredibly empty in my heart. It all felt so wrong, knowing that one of us would be left in this realm forever.

“Will...will you be the one to leave, then?”

I shook my head defiantly, absolutely shunning the idea. No, you should, I signed.

“No, Sayanica, you should be the one to go...I’ll be fine...just...staying here.”

I grabbed his shoulders, shaking sense into him as I shook my own head, and forced him to look into my eyes.

“C-come on, Sayanica, I’m...I’m a wreck without you!”

I glared at him.

“I-I don’t know if I’ll ever stop cr...” she averted his head from me once more and remained quiet. “I...I’d rather not live...in a world where you’re trapped here. He...Keolon, he said? He’s giving us silly promises. Even if we really did find a way to take you out too...it could be hundreds of years. I’d rather you die than go through that alone.”

It was difficult to express such complex feelings and thoughts through sign language, so I just hugged him. It was less an expression of love, and more one of assertion, though.

“It...I’ll never stop crying, Sayanica. W-we’ve been in here so long...we’ve endured for so long...I...” He sniffed. “I...I can’t stop being a crybaby without you. You know that.”

I refused to give up. The reason he thought I ought to be the one to escape was the same one that would convince him otherwise.

I could make my own decisions.

I woke to a knock on the door.

“Huh? What is it, I’m still tired...” Reco said, moving to open it.

“Hello, r-r-r-rockkkkkin’ adventurer!” a gallant voice said, before having the door shut on him.

“Ok, back to bed,” Reco said, walking back.

knock knock!

She walked back. “Huh? What is it, I’m still tired...” Reco said after moving to open it.

“Hello, r-rockkkkkin’ adventurer!?” a gallant voice said, before having the door shut on him.

Knock knock.

She opened it again.

“Uhh hey, Reco.”

“Hey,” she responded, sounding pissed and tired. “What is it, I need to sleep.”

“Uhh, well you can, I just need Saya.”

“Ok. Saya, you’re up.” She kicked the door closed for girls’ dignity. “Upsie-daisy, your new instructor needs you out there.”

I shot up from my [soul cushion], fully awake because of its regenerative powers, only to knock myself into Reco’s head.

“OWowowow...Ahh...are you ok?”

I put a hand on my head, hurt, but managed to stand.

“Ok, cool, you’re energetic and not hurt....freakin’ [soul cushion], why do you get the holy artifacts of nongrogginess...”

After dressing up in Seraph’s robes and preparing my belt and sword, I walked out with Coblaltio, making my way to the training ground.

Had I been groggy when I walked there, perhaps I would have been made a laughingstock, but I could thank Seraph that I avoided that outcome.

Herbert stood in front of the four trainees, who were lined up in front of him, one with their mule reigned in beside them, for some reason. (the stables were just behind the dorms)

I walked up to Herbert’s side and looked up at his aggravatingly charming face, unsure what to expect. He motioned his head to the four other teens, who seemed ready for me to do or say something.

I unclipped my slate from my belt and wrote. {I’m Saya(I’m mute). Nice to meet you all.}

“Hey,” the one with the mule said first, carrying a heavy northern accent, which usually sounded sardonic, to me. Her skin was even darker than Reco’s, bordering on black, but otherwise, she was a normal [human] girl, with bushy, curly black hair and leather armor that was a little too big for her; probably a hand-me-down. Too bad I didn’t have anything nice like that.

“Hello, Saya, I think I already introduced myself,” Ritta said, sounding as polite but imposingly pompous as he had been on our first meeting. He stood straight and held strict eye contact with me while he spoke. He wore a short, white and purple, and slightly ornate shirt and pants, but a tight webbed mesh underneath it fell all the way to his ankles and wrists, covering most of his body in breathable fabric. They were expensive clothes, though I didn’t understand the style.

The much more rugged boy beside him bowed deeply, a fist on his chest. “It is a pleasure, Angel of Seraph.” I guess that was a common gesture in the capital. He had long brown hair, kind eyes, two crossbows, and a whole bunch of weird stuff on his belt, two small sacks, a net, a pitchforklike dagger, a chain with bear traps on it, a shovel, and a bundle of clear string. Unlike Ritta, his clothes were more practical and lightweight and obviously intended for hunting in hotter temperatures. It wasn’t cold at this time of year, but it wasn’t too warm either.

The last one was a [viinrught]. Unlike the last one I had seen, his clay skin was a brownish red, rather than whitish-grey. The feathers on his arms draped almost two feet down, and were a very dark blue. His clothes, a sleeveless shirt and what I could only describe as boxers, looked kind of like matted wings. All of that was difficult to see, though, as a cloak the same color as his wings was draped over him, its hood down to show his strange, three-eyed ‘face’.

At first, I thought he looked intimidating, but when it came to his turn to say hi, he waved his hand, making a zig-zag fan shape with it, and said, “Heya new buddy.”

I...wasn’t expecting that kind of response, given the people with dark cloaks I had seen in the past week.

Once I got the chance, I asked the one with all the gadgets, {Are you a [trapper]?}, curious, since I had seen the class in action not long ago.

He nodded. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Herbert coughed, inciting me to continue my introduction.

Oh, right. {I’m a Silent Angel, I guess.} Wipe, write, {I’m...a} I considered what I was about to say before I raised my slate. There wasn’t any good way not to tell them I was an [oathbreaker], since I was planning on taking [avenger], which was a dead giveaway, and if I did tell them, it wouldn’t reflect nicely on me...

Well, F it, I gotta do what I gotta do. I fearlessly wrote, {I’m...an [oathbreaker], so I’m only one by name.} (yes, I included the ‘...’)

There was an awkward silence when I raised my slate. The [trapper] was clearly uneasy about it, and Ritta was looking at me critically, but the other two seemed more curious than anything else.

“Oh, I didn’t know that!” Herbert said, jumping away in surprise. “What did you do to piss of Seraph so much!?”

I patted cobaltio on the head, who nuzzled my hand in return. {I saved this little guy instead of chopping him up.}

Cobaltio poked his nose down at my slate, trying to decipher my words, but only got confused.

Ritta seemingly couldn’t be bothered to think more about it, so he shrugged it off, but my explanation seemed to make the [trapper] even more suspicious.

Herbert scratched his clean-shaven, nonexistent stubble. “I see...well, anyway, we’re going to do an icebreaker before we leave.”

{What’s an icebreaker?} I asked.

“Like, a game where you can get to know people.”

Ok...

“An adventurer without morale is...like...a mouse without cheese! Now...” He pulled a pair of blindfolds from his pocket and a large sack from his very tall backpack. “I apologize in advance to Tiffany for what I’m about to do, but remember, a true adventurer asks for forgiveness, not permission!”

He walked to the other side of the training ground, then poured its contents on the ground. He covered a column of the ground from one side to the other in metal balls, which I swore couldn’t have possibly fit inside the medium-sized sack.

“I like to call this game: the ball-bearing bash!”

“Heh, we’re sure gonna like this one,” Ritta said, somewhat sarcastic.

“Oh? You know what this game is, cousin? Would you mind explaining it to them?”

Ritta immediately slumped. “Urk...fine. So, we blindfold one person, then the other person tells them how to go across the minefield of ball bearings. Apparently, one kid broke their nose doing this, so it can be kinda dangerous.”

Herbert continued the explanation as he nobly tip-toed across the field of bearings, his expensive and unnecessary armor clanking around as he laid a black string across the field, cutting it into two parts. “I will separate you into two teams of two, and one of you will race across this majestic field under the direction of your assigned partner. Step outside of the field...” He motioned to the black string. “And you lose. Once one person makes it across, you do a baton pass with the blindfold, and the other guy goes back.”

“Uhh, sir?” the dark-skinned girl asked. “isn-”

“No adventurer is called ‘Sir’ if I recall correctly.”

She rolled her eyes. “Mr.Herbert, isn-”

“I’ve never heard of a Misterherbert, Juda.”

Juda sighed. “Herbert, isn’t there five of us?”

...

“Uhh...” Herbert began, finally laying down the rest of the string. “I...who doesn’t want to play?”

“Me-” the [trapper] started before being cut off.

Herbert interrupted him by quickly saying, “Rejectedonanethicalbasis,” and giving no further explanation, immediately making the [trapper] freeze up in surprise. Apparently, the outburst was confusing enough to make him pause and accept the instructor’s words without complaint. “So, who except him wants to sit this one out?”

“I’ll just stick this one out with Milo,” the other girl said with a shrug, patting her mule’s muzzle.

“Sounds good to me...” Herbert muttered. “Hmm...I guess this’ll be fine. Ok, Saya, Julius, you’re together.”

Julius, apparently the [trapper] briefly looked at me with distaste.

“Ritta, Dota, you’re together.”

“You better not slow us down with those chicken legs of yours, Ritta said to the cloaked Dota.

“And your monkey feet shouldn’t disappoint either,” the cloaked [viinrught] responded with a cackle, walking to the [human]’s side. He glanced towards me. “Oh, and, Saya, right? I do hope to see what a former Silent Angel is capable of.”

A bit of a weird way to put it, but ok. I nodded back at him in acknowledgment.

The [trapper] reluctantly walked to me. “Well, who’s wearing the blindfold first?”

I pointed to myself.

He walked behind me and tied it up after Cobaltio leaped from my back. It sent one of those weird, pleasurable chills down my spine; the stuff you feel when someone touches your head. The feeling quickly ended when he tied it really hard, tightening the knot with a jerk. I grumbled annoyedly at it.

“What’s with that [drake] anyway?”

I easily wrote, {He’s my friend.} while blindfolded, before clipping my slate back to my belt.

“Friend?” A certain high-pitched [drake] asked, from a few feet in front of me, causing everyone’s chatter to go silent.

I cleared my throat as I unclipped my slate, trying to write before anyone commented on it.

“Did he just talk?” Herbert asked.

“I...what’s with that [drake]!?” Julius said again.

Annoyed, I finished what I was writing. {He’s just a special little guy.}

“Sounds good enough to me.” I heard Dota say. “And you’re tying the blindfold too tight, Ritta.”

“Oh, I apologize.”

“No problem.”

Wait, if the [viinrught] had three eyes that could move about his face, how would a blindfold...whatever, I could figure it out later, when I beat those two in the...uhh...ball bearing bash, or whatever!

“Everyone, let’s get to our positions,” Herbert said, prompting Julius to guide me to the starting line, then walk to the other end, alongside the footsteps of the other two.

I heard a hee-haw behind me. Then, the other girl began speaking. “What? A [dragon]? If you say so, Milo...”

Yee-haw!

“No, I’m sure he’s nice...or...maybe not, but we’ll be fine.”

Hee-haaw!

“Of course you smell-”

I heard Herbert clear his throat.

“Sorry, instr- Herbert, I’ll shut up now.”

“Thank you, Juda.”

“Now that everyone is in their positions...you may begin the ball bearing bash.”